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Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1

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Champlain, in the mean time, took such active measures as seemed necessary
to establish his authority as lieutenant of the viceroy, or governor of New
France. He appeared before the Council of State at Tours, and after an
elaborate argument and thorough discussion of the whole subject, obtained a
decree ordering that he should have the command at Quebec and at all other
settlements in New France, and that the company should abstain from any
interference with him in the discharge of the duties of his office.

The Prince de Condé having recently been liberated from an imprisonment of
three years, governed by his natural avarice, was not unwilling to part
with his viceroyalty, and early in 1620 transferred it, for the
consideration of eleven thousand crowns, or about five hundred and fifty
pounds sterling, to his brother-in-law, the Duke de Montmorency, [85] at
that time high-admiral of France. The new viceroy appointed Champlain his
lieutenant, who immediately prepared to leave for Quebec. But when he
arrived at Honfleur, the company, displeased at the recent change, again
brought forward the old question of the authority which the lieutenant was
to exercise in New France. The time for discussion had, however, passed. No
further words were now to be wasted. The viceroy sent them a peremptory
order to desist from further interferences, or otherwise their ships,
already equipped for their yearly trade, would not be permitted to leave
port. This message from the high-admiral of France came with authority and
had the desired effect.

Early in May, 1620, Champlain sailed from Honfleur, accompanied by his wife
and several Recollect friars, and, after a voyage of two months, arrived at
Tadoussac, where he was cordially greeted by his brother-in-law, Eustache
Boullé, who was very much astonished at the arrival of his sister, and
particularly that she was brave enough to encounter the dangers of the
ocean and take up her abode in a wilderness at once barren of both the
comforts and refinements of European life.

On the 11th of July, Champlain left Tadoussac for Quebec, where he found
the whole establishment, after an absence of two years, in a condition of
painful neglect and disorder. He was cordially received, and becoming
ceremonies were observed to celebrate his arrival. A sermon composed for
the occasion was delivered by one of the Recollect Fathers, the commission
of the king and that of the viceroy appointing him to the sole command of
the colony were publicly read, cannon were discharged, and the little
populace, from loyal hearts, loudly vociferated _Vive le Roy!_

The attention of the lieutenant was at first directed to restoration and
repairs. The roof of the buildings no longer kept out the rain, nor the
walls the piercing fury of the winds. The gardens were in a state of
ruinous neglect, and the fields poorly and scantily cultivated. But the
zeal, energy, and industry of Champlain soon put every thing in repair, and
gave to the little settlement the aspect of neatness and thrift. When this
was accomplished, he laid the foundations of a fortress, which he called
the _Fort Saint Louis_, situated on the crest of the rocky elevation in the
rear of the settlement, about a hundred and seventy-two feet above the
surface of the river, a position which commanded the whole breadth of the
St. Lawrence at that narrow point.

This work, so necessary for the protection and safety of the colony,
involving as it did some expense, was by no means satisfactory to the
Company of Associates. [86] Their general fault-finding and chronic
discontent led the Duke de Montmorency to adopt heroic measures to silence
their complaints. In the spring of 1621, he summarily dissolved the
association of merchants, which he denominated the "Company of Rouen and
St. Malo," and established another in its place. He continued Champlain in
the office of lieutenant, but committed all matters relating to trade to
William de Caen, a merchant of high standing, and to Émeric de Caen the
nephew of the former, a good naval captain. This new and hasty
reorganization, arbitrary if not illegal, however important it might seem
to the prosperity and success of the colony, laid upon Champlain new
responsibilities and duties at once delicate and difficult to discharge.
Though in form suppressed, the company did not yield either its existence
or its rights. Both the old and the new company were, by their agents,
early in New France, clamoring for their respective interests. De Caen, in
behalf of the new, insisted that the lieutenant ought to prohibit all trade
with the Indians by the old company, and, moreover, that he ought to seize
their property and hold it as security for their unpaid obligations.
Champlain, having no written authority for such a proceeding, and De Caen,
declining to produce any, did not approve the measure and declined to act.
The threats of De Caen that he would take the matter into his own hands,
and seize the vessel of the old company commanded by Pont Gravé and then in
port, were so violent that Champlain thought it prudent to place a body of
armed men in his little fort still unfinished, until the fury of the
altercation should subside. [87] This decisive measure, and time, the
natural emollient of irritated tempers, soon restored peace to the
contending parties, and each was allowed to carry on its trade unmolested
by the other. The prudence of Champlain's conduct was fully justified, and
the two companies, by mutual consent, were, the next year, consolidated
into one.

Champlain remained at Quebec four years before again returning to France.
His time was divided between many local enterprises of great importance.
His special attention was given to advancing the work on the unfinished
fort, in order to provide against incursions of the hostile Iroquois, [88]
who at one time approached the very walls of Quebec, and attacked
unsuccessfully the guarded house of the Recollects on the St. Charles. [89]
He undertook the reconstruction of the buildings of the settlement from
their foundations. The main structure was enlarged to a hundred and eight
feet [90] in length, with two wings of sixty feet each, having small towers
at the four corners. In front and on the borders of the river a platform
was erected, on which were placed cannon, while the whole was surrounded by
a ditch spanned by drawbridges.

Having placed every thing at Quebec in as good order as his limited means
would permit, and given orders for the completion of the works which he had
commenced, leaving Émeric de Caen in command, Champlain determined to
return to France with his wife, who, though devoted to a religious life, we
may well suppose was not unwilling to exchange the rough, monotonous, and
dreary mode of living at Quebec for the more congenial refinements to which
she had always been accustomed in her father's family near the court of
Louis XIII. He accordingly sailed on the 15th of August, and arrived at
Dieppe on the 1st of October, 1624. He hastened to St. Germain, and
reported to the king and the viceroy what had occurred and what had been
done during the four years of his absence.

The interests of the two companies had not been adjusted and they were
still in conflict. The Duke de Montmorency about this time negotiated a
sale of his viceroyalty to his nephew, Henry de Levi, Duke de Ventadour.
This nobleman, of a deeply religious cast of mind, had taken holy orders,
and his chief purpose in obtaining the viceroyalty was to encourage the
planting of Catholic missions in New France. As his spiritual directors
were Jesuits, he naturally committed the work to them. Three fathers and
two lay brothers of this order were sent to Canada in 1625, and others
subsequently joined them. Whatever were the fruits of their labors, many of
them perished in their heroic undertaking, manfully suffering the exquisite
pains of mutilation and torture.

Champlain was reappointed lieutenant, but remained in France two years,
fully occupied with public and private duties, and in frequent
consultations with the viceroy as to the best method of advancing the
future interests of the colony. On the 15th of April, 1626, with Eustache
Boullé, his brother-in-law, who had been named his assistant or lieutenant,
he again sailed for Quebec, where he arrived on the 5th of July. He found
the colonists in excellent health, but nevertheless approaching the borders
of starvation, having nearly exhausted their provisions. The work that he
had laid out to be done on the buildings had been entirely neglected. One
important reason for this neglect, was the necessary employment of a large
number of the most efficient laborers, for the chief part of the summer in
obtaining forage for their cattle in winter, collecting it at a distance of
twenty-five or thirty miles from the settlement. To obviate this
inconvenience, Champlain took an early opportunity to erect a farm-house
near the natural meadows at Cape Tourmente, where the cattle could be kept
with little attendance, appointing at the same time an overseer for the
men, and making a weekly visit to this establishment for personal
inspection and oversight.

The fort, which had been erected on the crest of the rocky height in the
rear of the dwelling, was obviously too small for the protection of the
whole colony in case of an attack by hostile savages. He consequently took
it down and erected another on the same spot, with earthworks on the land
side, where alone, with difficulty, it could be approached. He also made
extensive repairs upon the storehouse and dwelling.

During the winter of 1626-27, the friendly Indians, the Montagnais,
Algonquins, and others gave Champlain much anxiety by unadvisedly entering
into an alliance, into which they were enticed by bribes, with a tribe
dwelling near the Dutch, in the present State of New York, to assist them
against their old enemies, the Iroquois, with whom, however, they had for
some time been at peace. Champlain justly looked upon this foolish
undertaking as hazardous not only to the prosperity of these friendly
tribes, but to their very existence. He accordingly sent his brother-in-law
to Three Rivers, the rendezvous of the savage warriors, to convince them of
their error and avert their purpose. Boullé succeeded in obtaining a delay
until all the tribes should be assembled and until the trading vessels
should arrive from France. When Émeric de Caen was ready to go to Three
Rivers, Champlain urged upon him the great importance of suppressing this
impending conflict with the Iroquois. The efforts of De Caen were, however,
ineffectual. He forthwith wrote to Champlain that his presence was
necessary to arrest these hostile proceedings. On his arrival, a grand
council was assembled, and Champlain succeeded, after a full statement of
all the evils that must evidently follow, in reversing their decision, and
messengers were sent to heal the breach. Some weeks afterward news came
that the embassadors were inhumanly massacred.

Crimes of a serious nature were not unfrequently committed against the
French by Indians belonging to tribes, with which they were at profound
peace. On one occasion two men, who were conducting cattle by land from
Cape Tourmente to Quebec, were assassinated in a cowardly manner. Champlain
demanded of the chiefs that they should deliver to him the perpetrators of
the crime. They expressed genuine sorrow for what had taken place, but were
unable to obtain the criminals. At length, after consulting with the
missionary, Le Caron, they offered to present to Champlain three young
girls as pledges of their good faith, that he might educate them in the
religion and manners of the French. The gift was accepted by Champlain, and
these savage maidens became exceedingly attached to their foster-father, as
we shall see in the sequel.

The end of the year 1627 found the colony, as usual, in a depressed state.
As a colony, it had never prospered. The average number composing it had
not exceeded about fifty persons. At this time it may have been somewhat
more, but did not reach a hundred. A single family only appears to have
subsisted by the cultivation of the soil. [91] The rest were sustained by
supplies sent from France. From the beginning disputes and contentions had
prevailed in the corporation. Endless bickerings sprung up between the
Huguenots and Catholics, each sensitive and jealous of their rights. [92]
All expenditures were the subject of censorious criticism. The necessary
repairs of the fort, the enlargement and improvement of the buildings from
time to time, were too often resisted as unnecessary and extravagant. The
company, as a mere trading association, was doubtless successful. Large
quantities of peltry were annually brought by the Indians for traffic to
the Falls of St. Louis, Three Rivers, Quebec, and Tadoussac. The average
number of beaver-skins annually purchased and transported to France was
probably not far from fifteen thousand to twenty thousand, and in a most
favorable year it mounted up to twenty-two thousand. [93] The large
dividends that they were able to make, intimated by Champlain to be not far
from forty per centum yearly, were, of course, highly satisfactory to the
company. They desired not to impair this characteristic of their
enterprise. They had, therefore, a prime motive for not wishing to lay out
a single unnecessary franc on the establishment. Their policy was to keep
the expenses at the minimum and the net income at the maximum. Under these
circumstances, nearly twenty years had elapsed since the founding of
Quebec, and it still possessed only the character of a trading post, and
not that of a colonial plantation. This progress was satisfactory neither
to Champlain, to the viceroy, nor the council of state. In the view of
these several interested parties, the time had come for a radical change in
the organization of the company. Cardinal de Richelieu had risen by his
extraordinary ability as a statesman, a short time anterior to this, into
supreme authority, and had assumed the office of grand master and chief of
the navigation and commerce of France. His sagacious and comprehensive mind
saw clearly the intimate and interdependent relations between these two
great national interests and the enlargement and prosperity of the French
colonies in America. He lost no time in organizing measures which should
bring them into the closest harmony. The company of merchants whose
finances had been so skilfully managed by the Caens was by him at once
dissolved. A new one was formed, denominated _La Compagnie de la
Nouvelle-France_, consisting of a hundred or more members, and commonly
known as the Company of the Hundred Associates. It was under the control
and management of Richelieu himself. Its members were largely gentlemen in
official positions about the court, in Paris, Rouen, and other cities of
France. Among them were the Marquis Deffiat, superintendent of finances,
Claude de Roquemont, the Commander de Razilly, Captain Charles Daniel,
Sébastien Cramoisy, the distinguished Paris printer, Louis Houêl, the
controller of the salt works in Brouage, Champlain, and others well known
in public circles.

The new company had many characteristics which seemed to assure the solid
growth and enlargement of the colony. Its authority extended over the whole
domain of New France and Florida. It provided in its organization for an
actual capital of three hundred thousand livres. It entered into an
obligation to send to Canada in 1628 from two to three hundred artisans of
all trades, and within the space of fifteen years to transport four
thousand colonists to New France. The colonists were to be wholly supported
by the company for three years, and at the expiration of that period were
to be assigned as much land as they needed for cultivation. The settlers
were to be native-born Frenchmen, exclusively of the Catholic faith, and no
foreigner or Huguenot was to be permitted to enter the country. [94] The
charter accorded to the company the exclusive control of trade and all
goods manufactured in New France were to be free of imposts on exportation.
Besides these, it secured to the corporators other and various exclusive
privileges of a semifeudal character, supposed, however, to contribute to
the prosperity and growth of the colony.

The organization of the company, having received the formal approbation of
Richelieu on the 29th of April, 1627, was ratified by the Council of State
on the 6th of May, 1628.

ENDNOTES:

84. The character of Étienne Brulé, either for honor or veracity, is not
improved by his subsequent conduct. He appears in 1629 to have turned
traitor, to have sold himself to the English, and to have piloted them
up the river in their expedition against Quebec. Whether this conduct,
base certainly it was, ought to affect the credibility of his story,
the reader must judge. Champlain undoubtedly believed it when he first
related it to him. He probably had no means then or afterwards of
testing its truth. In the edition of 1632, Brulé's story is omitted. It
does not necessarily follow that it was omitted because Champlain came
to discredit the story, since many passages contained in his preceding
publications are omitted in the edition of 1632, but they are not
generally passages of so much geographical importance as this, if it be
true. The map of 1632 indicates the country of the Carantouanais; but
this information might have been obtained by Champlain from the Hurons,
or the more western tribes which he visited during the winter of
1615-16.--_Vide_ ed. 1632, p. 220.

85. Henry de Montmorency II was born at Chantilly in 1595, and was beheaded
at Toulouse Oct 30, 1632. He was created admiral at the age of
seventeen He commanded the Dutch fleet at the siege of Rochelle. He
made the campaigns of 1629 and 1630 in Piedmont, and was created a
marshal of France after the victory of Veillane. He adopted the party
of Gaston, the Duke of Orleans, and having excited the province of
Languedoc of which he was governor to rebellion, he was defeated, and
executed as guilty of high treason. He was the last scion of the elder
branch of Montmorency and his death was a fatal blow to the reign of
feudalism.

86. Among other annoyances which Champlain had to contend against was the
contraband trade carried on by the unlicensed Rochellers, who not only
carried off quantities of peltry, but even supplied the Indians with
fire-arms and ammunition This was illegal, and endangered the safety of
the colony--_Vide Voyages par De Champlain_, Paris, 1632, Sec Partie, p
3.

87. _Vide_ ed 1632, Sec Partie, Chap III.

88. _Vide Hist. New France_, by Charlevoix, Shea's. Trans., Vol. II. p. 32.

89. The house of the Recollects on the St. Charles was erected in 1620, and
was called the _Conuent de Nostre Dame Dame des Anges_. The Father Jean
d'Olbeau laid the first stone on the 3d of June of that year.--_Vide
Histoire du Canada_ par Gabriel Sagard, Paris, 1636, Tross ed., 1866,
p. 67; _Découvertes et Êtablissements des Français, dans Pouest et dans
le sud de L'Amerique Septentrionale_ 1637, par Pierre Margry, Paris,
1876, Vol. I. p. 7.

90. _Hundred and eight feet_, dix-huiet toyses. The _toise_ here estimated
at six feet. Compare _Voyages de Champlain_, Laverdière's ed., Vol. I.
p. lii, and ed. 1632, Paris, Partie Seconde, p. 63.

91. There was but one private house at Quebec in 1623, and that belonged to
Madame Hébert, whose husband was the first to attempt to obtain a
living by the cultivation of the soil.--_Vide Sagard, Hist, du Canada_,
1636, Tross ed. Vol. I. p. 163 There were fifty-one inhabitants at
Quebec in 1624, including men, women, and children.--_Vide Champlain_,
ed. 1632, p. 76.

92. _Vide Champlain_, ed. 1632, pp. 107, 108, for an account of the attempt
on the part of the Huguenot, Émeric de Caen, to require his sailors to
chaunt psalms and say prayers on board his ship after entering the
River St. Lawrence, contrary to the direction of the Viceroy, the Duke
de Ventadour. As two thirds of them were Huguenots, it was finally
agreed that they should continue to say their prayers, but must omit
their psalm-singing.

93. Father Lalemant enumerates the kind of peltry obtained by the French
from the Indians, and the amount, as follows. "En eschange ils
emportent des peaux d'Orignac, de Loup Ceruier, de Renard, de Loutre,
et quelquefois il s'en rencontre de noires, de Martre, de Blaireau et
de Rat Musqué, mais principalement de Castor qui est le plus grand de
leur gain. On m'a dit que pour vne année ils en auoyent emporté iusques
à 22000. L'ordinaire de chaque année est de 15000, ou 20000, à une
pistole la pièce, ce n'est pas mal allé."--_Vide Rélation de la
Nouvelle France en l'Année_ 1626, Quebec ed. p. 5.

94. This exclusiveness was characteristic of the age. Cardinal Richelieu
and his associates were not qualified by education or by any tendency
of their natures to inaugurate a reformation in this direction. The
experiment of amalgamating Catholic and Huguenot in the enterprises of
the colony had been tried but with ill success. Contentions and
bickerings had been incessant, and subversive of peace and good
neighborhood. Neither party had the spirit of practical toleration as
we understand it, and which we regard at the present day as a priceless
boon. Nor was it understood anywhere for a long time afterward. Even
the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay did not comprehend it, and took
heroic measures to exclude from their commonwealth those who differed
from them in their religious faith. We certainly cannot censure them
for not being in advance of their times. It would doubtless have been
more manly in them had they excluded all differing from them by plain
legal enactment, as did the Society of the Hundred Associates, rather
than to imprison or banish any on charges which all subsequent
generations must pronounce unsustained _Vide Memoir of the Rev. John
Wheelwright_, by Charles H. Bell, Prince Society, ed. 1876, pp. 9-31
_et passim; Hutchinson Papers_, Prince Society ed., 1865, Vol. I. pp.
79-113. American _Criminal Trials_, by Peleg W. Chandler, Boston, 1841,
Vol. I. p. 29.




CHAPTER X.

THE FAVORABLE PROSPECTS OF THE COMPANY OF NEW FRANCE.--THE ENGLISH INVASION
OF CANADA AND THE SURRENDER OF QUEBEC--CAPTAIN DANIEL PLANTS A FRENCH
COLONY NEAR THE GRAND CIBOU--CHAMPLAIN IN FRANCE, AND THE TERRITORIAL
CLAIMS OF THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH STILL UNSETTLED

The Company of New France, or of the Hundred Associates, lost no time in
carrying out the purpose of its organization. Even before the ratification
of its charter by the council, four armed vessels had been fitted out and
had already sailed under the command of Claude de Roquemont, a member of
the company, to convoy a fleet of eighteen transports laden with emigrants
and stores, together with one hundred and thirty-five pieces of ordnance to
fortify their settlements in New France.

The company, thus composed of noblemen, wealthy merchants, and officials of
great personal influence, with a large capital, and Cardinal Richelieu, who
really controlled and shaped the policy of France at that period, at its
head possessed so many elements of strength that, in the reasonable
judgment of men, success was assured, failure impossible. [95]

To Champlain, the vision of a great colonial establishment in New France,
that had so long floated before him in the distance, might well seem to be
now almost within his grasp. But disappointment was near at hand. Events
were already transpiring which were destined to cast a cloud over these
brilliant hopes. A fleet of armed vessels was already crossing the
Atlantic, bearing the English flag, with hostile intentions to the
settlements in New France. Here we must pause in our narrative to explain
the origin, character, and purpose of this armament, as unexpected to
Champlain as it was unwelcome.

The reader must be reminded that no boundaries between the French and
English territorial possessions in North America at this time existed. Each
of these great nations was putting forth claims so broad and extensive as
to utterly exclude the other. By their respective charters, grants, and
concessions, they recognized no sovereignty or ownership but their own.

Henry IV. of France, made, in 1603, a grant to a favorite nobleman, De
Monts, of the territory lying between the fortieth and the forty-sixth
degrees of north latitude. James I. of England, three years later, in 1606,
granted to the Virginia Companies the territory lying between the
thirty-fourth and the forty-eighth degrees of north latitude, covering the
whole grant made by the French three years before. Creuxius, a French
historian of Canada, writing some years later than this, informs us that
New France, that is, the French possessions in North America, then embraced
the immense territory extending from Florida, or from the thirty-second
degree of latitude, to the polar circle, and in longitude from Newfoundland
to Lake Huron. It will, therefore, be seen that each nation, the English
and the French, claimed at that time sovereignty over the same territory,
and over nearly the whole of the continent of North America. Under these
circumstances, either of these nations was prepared to avail itself of any
favorable opportunity to dispossess the other.

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